SINGLES

The first ARIA Chart for 2016 has Justin Bieber holding for a fourth straight week with “Love Yourself”, which matches the four week’s his previous No.1 “What Do You Mean” (TW-9) achieved back in September of 2015.

This also means Justin has now amassed eight week from his two No.1 songs moving him to equal twelfth on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: 2010’s’ alongside Guy Sebastian and Meghan Trainor who have also notched up eight weeks from two chart topping singles this decade.

After falling to its lowest chart placing last week of No.3, “Hello” by Adele is back up one spot to No.2, pushing Justin’s third Top 10 hit of the week “Sorry” back down to No.3, whilst “Stitches” by Shawn Mendes rebounds back up to No.4 for a fourth non-consecutive week at the songs peak, and this in turn pushes last weeks Top 10 entry of “Fast Car” by Jonas Blue featuring Dakota down one spot to No.5.

DJ Snake and Bipolar Sunshine remain at No.6 again this week with “Middle” and moving back up two places to No.7 is Zara Larsson and MNEK with “Never Forget You” whilst the only new entry to the Top 10 this week are Snakehips with Tinashe and Chance the Rapper on “All My Friends”, which becomes all three acts’ first Top 10 single in Australia, and the fact that they played music festivals here on NYE and NYD should help boost the track again next week, whilst finally holding at No.10 for a second week are WSTRN with their debut track “IN2”.

UP

“Downtown” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis seems to drop then rebound, and this week is rebound week, as their former No.1 climbs back up two spots to No.11, whilst jumping five spots to land a new peak of No.14 is Elle King with “Ex’s & Oh’s”. “Dessert” for Dawin is back up six spots to No.17 and “In the Night” for The Weeknd climbs up a couple of spots to No.18 this week. “Fire & the Flood” for Vance Joy jumps back up eleven spots to No.24 this week, with the new Zara Larsson track “Lush Life” up nine to a new peak of No.25, and “Youth” for Troye Sivan climbs three to land a new chart height of No.27. Alessia Cara benefits from her EP “Four Pink Walls” being released, as her track “Here” jumps up fourteen spots to No.29 while One Direction see an eleven place rise for their former No.1 song “Drag Me Down”, up to No.36. “One Call Away” for Charlie Puth and Tyga is up four spots to a new peak of No.37 and “Uptown Funk” for Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars is back up eleven spots and into the Top 40 at No.38. Rebounding back into the Top 50 this week are “Magnets” for Disclosure and Lorde (#41), “Focus” by Ariana Grande (#42), “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” by Silento (#47), “Photograph” for Ed Sheeran (#50)

DOWN

The only song leaving the Top 10 this week is the Duke Dumont track “Ocean Drive” (HP-5x2, WI10-8), but other tracks further down the chart that drop this week are “Lay it All on Me” for Rudimental and Ed Sheeran which is down five to No.19, “Stand by You” for Rachel Platten and “Can’t Feel My Face” by The Weeknd both drop five spots to No.31 and No.33 respectively, with the next big drop occurring for 99 Souls with “The Girl is Mine” which is down thirteen places to No.46 and “Adventure of a Lifetime” by Coldplay falls nine to No.48.

Making their debut within this week’s fifty is Sydney dance act/producer L.D.R.U. along with vocalist Paige IV on the track “Keeping Score” which debuts at No.49 this week making it the first new entry to the Top 50 for this year.

ALBUMS

Adele and her mega third album “25” stay atop the ARIA Albums Chart for a sixth straight week, also becoming the first No.1 album for 2016.

The last album to spend six unbroken weeks at No.1 was way back in July 2012 when “My Journey” by Karise Eden spent six weeks at the top, but in the meantime Taylor Swift’s “1989” spent nine broken weeks over five runs at the top from early November 2014 through until mid-February 2015.

Adele also notches up her 38th overall week at No.1 on the Australian Albums chart with “25” and “21”, which puts her equal sixth on the list for ‘Accumulated Weeks at No.1: Albums’ alongside Rod Stewart who has also racked up 38 weeks at the top but from his seven albums, mostly during the 1970’s (pre-ARIA). If Adele stays another week (which she mostly likely will) she will tie ABBA and their 39 weeks at No.1 after which she has to beat John Farnham and Neil Diamond which are in the mid 40’s on the tally board.

Justin Bieber moves back up to No.2 with his album “Purpose” and “1989” for Taylor Swift rises back up two places to No.3 whilst Ed Sheeran is on hold at No.4 with his “x” (multiply) album. Coldplay dropped hard in their second week on the chart, but this week rise back up three places to No.5 with “A Head Full of Dreams”, followed by Elvis Presley and “If I Can Dream”, back up one spots to No.6.

“Made in the A.M.” for One Direction jumps back into the Top 10 this week, up five spots to No.7 and also returning to the ten is The Weeknd with “Beauty Behind the Madness”, jumping eight spots to land at No.8. All these albums rising is due to “Christmas” by Michael Buble dropping seven places this week to No.9 with it most likely leaving the Top 100 next week, and lastly down one spot to No.10 is the self-titled album for X-Factor finalists Jess & Matt.

UP

Rebounding fifteen places to land at No.11 this week is the debut album for Troye Sivan “Blue Neighbourhood” and rising five spots to a new peak of No.12 is the TV soundtrack for the upcoming tele movie “Molly”. “Title” for Meghan Trainor is back up eight spots to No.15 and Vance Joy also jumps with the album “Dream Your Life Away”, which is back up eight also, to No.17. Fleetwood Mac and their “Greatest Hits” collection are back into the Top 50 at No.21 and “Currents” for Tame Impala rises up ten to No.22 whilst “The Very Best” of INXS is up fourteen spots this week to No.24. “Get Weird” by Little Mix jumps twenty-one places to No.26 and 5SOS with “Sounds Good Feels Good” is back up sixteen spots to No.29. The Beatles collection “1” returns to the chart at No.31 now that their back catalogue is streaming, and also back into the Top 50 this week is Halsey with “Badland”, returning at No.36. Jumping into the Top 50 from lower down this week are Bring Me the Horizon with “That’s the Spirit” (#33), the soon to be released DVD and Blu-Ray of ‘Straight Outta Compton’ helps the Dr. Dre soundtrack “Compton” (#34) to leap back up, Queen rise with their “Greatest Hits” (#37), the self-titled album for Hozier (#38), RHCP and their “Greatest Hits” (#40), James Bay with “Chaos and the Calm” (#42), Rudimental and “We the Generation” (#44), “To Pimp a Butterfly” by Kendrick Lamar (#46) and for Birds of Tokyo and their “Playlist” (#49).

DOWN

The two albums leaving the Top 10 this week are “The Very Best of Richie” (HP-4, WI10-4) for The Twelfth Man dropping eight to No.14 and “The Christmas Album” (HP-4x2, WI10-10) by Human Nature which plummets thirty-seven spots to No.47 after spending the past four weeks at No.10. “Dark Sky Island” by Enya is back down five to No.18 and last weeks highest new entry for Chris Brown, “Royalty”, this week drops six to No.20. James Blunt and his collection “I’ll Take Everything” drops back down six to No.35 and the “Frozen” soundtrack celebrates its two year anniversary on the ARIA Albums chart by dropping eight to No.50.

CHRISTMAS (is over)

This past week sales fell into only one day of the festive season sales, and that day was actually Christmas day, so only online retailers would have done okay, but for the other six days of the sales period, it seems people didn’t want to buy Christmas albums. So dropping hard this week of course was the Michael Buble “Christmas” set (2 to 9), but also down are albums by Kylie Minogue (11 to 32), Mariah Carey (20 to 43) and Human Nature (10 to 47).